History of Media by I. M. Diakonoff was published in 1956, and republished in Persian 10 years later. Its abridged and somewhat renewed version in English was included in the Cambridge History of Iran (vol. 2,1985). The author was the only historian to have a direct access to the Akkad (Assyrian and Babylonian), Old Persian and Classical written sources as well as to interpret archaeological data independently. All other scolars writing about Media were forced to greater or lesser extent to get information at second, or even third, hand. Therefore, this book remains to be the most authoritative source corpus on the history of Media.